The Shaman/Chapter 8

Peluk proved anything but difficult to engage.

“Mebbe better I go show first pass in mountains. Very hard pass to find if not know how. But—mus' ask lady. No can go if lady say 'No.'”

And madame, after a moment's thought, gave her consent.

“What Peluk says is quite true,” she admitted. “The first passage to the northwest is difficult. Once through that you will find a stream which you must follow. I will give and explain to you a trail map.”

I was somewhat perplexed by her readiness of consent, her evident intent to make our departure easier, her apparent desire to so direct us that we might avoid mishap. I was further astonished when from her desk she selected a map and handed it to me with the suggestion that I make a copy of it. I took it to my room where I might work undisturbed, and spread it upon the table. It did not present the appearance of having been used in trail work. It was too white, clean, unsoiled; but there could be no doubt that whoever had produced it was a skilled cartographer; and, furthermore, its copious explanatory notes were in English and in that same precise, small handwriting that I had observed in the grammar I had surreptitiously copied. It was while working on it that the thought came that perhaps I could lead the shaman to indicate on the map the place where was buried that white man who might be none other than Barnes. And then, if he could not be induced to conduct us to the spot, or if it was too far away, there was the chance that we could find it ourselves.

Peluk was at his everlasting task of carving when I visited him on the following morning. The day was a trifle brighter than usual. The light of the window against which he sat made of him an almost solid silhouette—no—more like one of the old Dutch paintings wherein the artist has permitted the light to flow vaguely around the outlines of head and face, to so disperse itself as to show a fold of a garment here and there, to suggest indistinct, almost elusive shapes. The shaman appeared like a monstrous idol, as he sat there against the light.

“Ummh!” he said. “Lady say can go? Very good. Think mebbe good you take four more good dogs from village. What you trade forum? Ummh? Think mebbe you got something I like. Ummh?”

This acquisition had been in my mind for days; but knowing the enormous value a native of Alaska places upon his dogs, I had deemed it beyond fulfillment. I offered him my watch. He grinned and produced one of his own, cumbersome, heavily incased in silver. In vain I tried to get him to accept a tiny camera, a gold match box well wrought and engraved. Always he inspected the proffered article, studied it for a moment, grinned, handed it back, and with a chuckle shook his head.

“Nossing more?” he queried, reaching for his unfinished button and carving steel, as if our attempt at trade had failed.

“Nothing I can think of. You don't care for money. You have a watch.”

He glanced at me from the corners of his eyes without movement of his head, reverted to the button, held it up to the light as if to inspect it more closely, and said, “Mebbe got gun—what you callum—'volver? Shootum mebbe five, six, mebbe more times. Mebbe I like that for dogs, ummmh?”

Why on earth should this man covet my revolver? It was useless to me in that land where shotgun and rifle are the only firearms which can slay for food. I thought it but fair to enlighten him of its possibilities.

“A Colt's pistol doesn't shoot as far as a rifle,” I explained. “Shoots good, but not like rifle. Understand. Shoots true. Kills. But—not a long distance. Did you ever shoot one?”

“Nope,” he responded promptly. “But me shaman. Nobody got what you callum? Peestol! Yes that it! Peestol! Make me big mans here, ummh? Good! For peestol and cartlidges me give four dog. Very good dog. We trade?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I've got a pistol up at the great house.”

“Other white mans got one, too? Mebbe more trade, ummh?”

“No,” I said, “he has none. But I'll trade. I'd like to see the dogs.”

“Good!” he said, arising with the startling quickness that seemed impossible to such a bulky form. “You go fetchum peestol. I go ketchum dog.” He stopped, rubbed his chin with his fingers, grinned, and added, “Mebbe best say nossings anybody, ummh? Me like make quiet—see? Like make other Injuns think me big man when showum what got.”

He put his hands to hips that were lean, despite his great shoulders and chest, and bent forward with an explosion of laughter. “Foolum some time mebbe, ummh?”

When I returned with the pistol he coveted, he held in leash four magnificent dogs with the great breasts and shoulders, the broad heads and powerful jaws of the cross breed of timber wolf and Malemute. They strained at restraint, moved restlessly and gracefully about his legs, and one of them, deep-throated, yelped as though eager for the work and adventure of the trail.

“These good, ummh?” he asked.

“It's a trade,” I replied. “Let them go and come inside. I'll show you how to work the gun.”

He slipped the leashes and the dogs scampered away. In his house I laid upon the table a full box of cartridges, saw that the chambers of the revolver were empty, lifted and repeatedly snapped it at an imaginary mark. With that same slow grin he took it from my hand and stared into the muzzle. I warned him against that time-proven folly. I was surprised by his clumsiness and recklessness with even an unaccustomed weapon. I took pains to caution him, for which he evidenced gratitude. He put the revolver and the cartridges on a shelf, seemed to dismiss the bargain, and then started toward the window ledge on which his work of artistry and tools still lay.

“See here, Peluk,” I said. “I have a map. You understand? Map! Paper that shows trails, villages, mountains, rivers, Understand?”

He turned toward me abruptly as if perplexed but eager to learn. I took from my pocket the copy which I had made through the kindness of Madame Malitka, and spread it upon the floor, kneeling over it, and endeavoring to instruct him as to its symbols.

“See, sun over there in summer. Down here in winter,” pointing with my hand. “These marks mountains. These rivers. These trees.”

“Ummh! Where get?” he inquired, standing stolidly above me as I knelt.

“Madame gave it to me. To show how to go. Understand?”

“Yes. Lady give. Make show how way go, ummh? Good! Can see. Here mountain pass,” and he pointed with his stubby finger. “Here water, here woods. Heap remember woods. Make good camp for you, first sleep. You go mebbe—what you callum?—'leven 'clock forenoon. Be in edge woods five 'clock. Very good start. You like me go that far, sleep your tent, come home next day?”

I accepted with alacrity. If all went well and I could gain more of his confidence on the trail it was possible he would mark the map for me so that I could find what I sought. He volunteered to send our sled around in the morning to be at our disposal for packing. He entered into the adventure as if he were glad to take a winter's trail once more, after long inertia.

I was eager to escape, and was yet loath to pass from creature comforts, the last, I was well aware, that we might expect for many weary, toilsome days. The rigors of an Alaskan winter trail were anything but pleasant. We were more than usually silent that night. All of Jack's lightness of spirit seemed to have left him. He was restless and thoughtful. Madame, while at ease, had but little to say, now and then staring somberly into the fire with an unusual frown upon her brow, and I sometimes wondered if she repented of her original leniency that had spared our lives, and still more so of her permitting us to depart bound by nothing more than our pledge of silence. I wondered if she knew that there were those in her village who grumbled because we had been permitted to survive, and were held in check only because she was the law and its rigid executive.

Finally I went to our room and did what simple packing was possible to lessen the labors of the following morning. I do not think I was gone more than half an hour; but as I returned to the living room I heard her say, just as I opened the door, “No, no! Impossible. There is nothing you can do for me, my friend, save to forget everything regarding me and mine. That is final! ”

Again, as on previous occasions, I felt that my entrance into their presence ended an intimate conversation.

The morning came, clear, cold, and with the lifeless stillness of that latitude in winter. We were packing our sled when to our surprise the shaman arrived with another, surveyed our outfit that was scattered on the snow preparatory to laying in, and abruptly and cheerfully took command. He was almost boisterously important. He ordered the curious villagers to stand back. He selected two or three stalwart young men and instructed them to divide the load between our sled and his own, explaining to us in English, “Dogs go easier when loads this way. If all load on one sled other dogs go too fast. Makeum all work.”

He was so solicitous for our future that he unwrapped and inspected the great store of delicious, birch-smoked salmon, objected to some of it, and brusquely commanded one of his henchmen to go immediately and select something better. He saw that the dog fish was tightly packed, and well placed, the bundle taking up the forward end of his own sled. Our “grub box” he opened, and inspected to make certain that it was well filled. Even the battered and worn sheet-metal stove with which as well as a trail tent, madame had provided us, underwent his scrutiny before he would pass it on to be packed, the last of all our impedimenta on the nose of our sled. He personally saw to each lashing and then bade his men bring the dog teams, and declared everything in readiness.

When our dog team, augmented by the four magnificent animals he had sold me appeared, he supervised their harnessing and I saw that even our equipment had not been neglected and that there was not a band of leather, or rawhide, a knot or a stitch, that had not been repaired and made perfect.

“Feedum your dogs all time myself,” he said, with his gentle grin that exposed his white, strong and perfect teeth. “When trade other dogs, putum all together so be friends in team. Now all go very good. No fight. Work good. This beeg one not very nice with mans don't know. Mus' make friends with him. Mebbe liT too much wolf, ummh? But strong! Go fast! Phwew! Like that!” And he gave a shrill indicative whistle through his teeth.

His own dogs were already “put in” to his sled. Great powerful brutes that wagged bushy tails and strained and whined and barked in their eagerness to be off. A slim, tall, but sinewy man stood quietly holding the leader of our dog team by its collar. I did not remember to have seen him before, but could not avoid noting his high cheek bones, aquiline nose, thin lips, lean face, and unwinking black eyes.

Holding the shaman's lead dog was another man, broad of shoulder, lean of hip, and suggesting an athlete fit to run a Marathon. We were ready to start. The shaman turned to Madame Malitka, who stood quietly observant in the entrance of the great house, with a great loose mantle, magnificently barbaric, priceless in value, made of the rare sea otter's fur, thrown across her shoulders, its voluminous folds held like a drapery about her by her hands, and its high collar turned up to protect her ears, neck, and cheeks from the cold. Her blue-black hair, massed and beautiful, was carefully coifed as usual. Her fine eyes, dark, impassive, directed themselves from one objective to another, as if to observe all. Her delicately but firmly molded lips remained immobile, until she spoke to us her farewell.

It was as if she dismissed us, forever, from her life, she to whom, it seemed to me, our advent and visit should have been epochal. We, the first men of her own white race with whom she had conversed for years, bringing, like strange argosies from the outer world that she must have known, rare freights of intelligence and communion. Her firm, white, and competent hand slipped from beneath a fold of that rarest of fur and was extended to Jack. He took it, held it for an instant, bent over it, and sought her eyes as if at the last he were beseeching her to relent and abrogate some decision.

“Peluk will start you well,” she said quietly. “After that—you can find your way. I wish you a safe return to those places from which you came.”

As if finally and irrevocably rebuffed, Jack's hand released hers. His eyes lowered after one direct look. He turned away and drew on his fur mittens, carefully adjusting the long gauntlets that protected his wrists from the cold. He did not look up until she said “Good-by,” in that same restrained, calm voice, and then whirled impulsively and said, “It isn't really farewell, then, is it?”

“That is the better word,” she said, and held her hand toward me.

I had already donned my mittens, but now pulled one off, remembering the courtesies of that civilization which she had cast behind. I took her hand in mine, and would have instantly removed it but that her fingers held mine for a moment as she stared at me thoughtfully. I thought the grasp was one of friendship and frank trust.

“Hathaway,” she said, “you are gray and old and experienced. A block of ice! A peak of hardened snow—but—wise! I think—had you let me—I might have talked with you more than I have. But you did not. You will keep your word in good faith. I ask you to hold our friend—yes, my friend as well as yours!—to his pledge that once you have left here neither he nor you are ever to mention me, this place, your visit, or anything that you have seen, to any living being. Nor are either of you ever to come back. You are to forget. That is understood, is it not?”

“One can't forget at will,” I replied with exactitude. “But of this, Madame Malitka, you may be sure, that in all other things our promise holds. Is that sufficient?”

It seemed to me that we held each other's hands for an unnecessarily long time before she said, “Yes. That is sufficient. Good-by.”

She did not wait to see our start. I looked at the group of natives standing obediently and respectfully aloof, with a white band of snow between us, our dogs and loaded sleds, and when I turned for a final glance at Madame Malitka, she had gone. The door of the great house was closed, as if we had been suddenly and permanently barred from its warmth and shelter.

The shaman gave a loud shout as of one starting upon great emprise. The Indians who had been restraining the leaders released their grips. The quivering, expectant animals abruptly strained into their harness, with lolling or baying tongues outhung between white fangs; the sled shoes after the last clutch as if reluctant to lose their holds upon the snow suddenly moved with tiny complaints and creaks of parting, and we were off. The natives of the village, children, squaws, klootches, and bucks, young and old, together hastened beside us through the street until Peluk threw up his hand and with one harsh, vibrant word sent them back. We slipped across the downward swale into the ravine that cut from sight the village and all who dwelt therein, ruler or subject, and all the noise died away save that which was of our own movement.